Changes in Internet use patterns among older adults in England from before to after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an increased reliance on the Internet for various daily activities. Given the known digital divide, it is important to understand whether older adults changed their Internet use patterns, but current evidence is limited to cross-sectional studies. This study documents changes in frequency and types of Internet use among older adults from before to shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (2018/2019 to June/July 2020), and the factors predicting regular use during these early days of the pandemic. Using data on 6,840 adults aged 50 + from the nationally representative English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we apply longitudinal fixed-effects models to examine within-individual changes in Internet use behaviour. There was no change in the likelihood of daily Internet use between 2018/2019 and June/July 2020, despite the increased digitalisation of services over the pandemic. Daily use in June/July 2020 was negatively related to age, neighbourhood deprivation, and loneliness, and positively related to partnership status, education, employment, income, and organisation membership. Using the Internet for making calls and getting information about Government services increased, which was important given the social restrictions and overall uncertainty. However, Internet use for finding health-related information decreased. As the world moves towards digital alternatives post-pandemic, it is important to continually ensure older adults are not at risk of exclusion.


Changes in Internet use patterns among older adults in England from before to after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic
Claryn S. J. Kung & Andrew Steptoe  Figure 1, with the inclusion of ONS estimates from 2019 and 2020, illustrating the comparability of both sets of estimates. For instance, from the ELSA, 86% of those born after 1955 and 60% of those born by 1955 used the Internet daily in 2019, whereas ONS estimates are 83% and 61%. Data pertaining to Internet access in 2020 was only collected in January and February 2020, that is, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, giving rise to some of the minor differences seen.  Due to differences in the options presented over the different ELSA waves, we collapse or remove several categories from earlier ELSA Waves to make them consistent with the options presented in the COVID-19 Substudy:

Table of contents
a Not asked in the COVID-19 Substudy, so we do not further analyse this. b In Waves 8 and 9, this was presented as two separate items, namely "streaming/downloading live or on demand TV/radio, music (iTunes, Spotify), or ebooks" and "games". We collapse these two items to be consistent with the COVID-19 Substudy version. c In Waves 8 and 9, this was presented as "using public services" cf. "getting information about Government services". Table S3. Factor descriptions.

Has depressive symptomatology
Depressive symptomology is measured using the eight-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), where participants are asked whether, "much of the time during the past week", they felt depressed, felt that everything they did was an effort, their sleep was restless, they were happy, they felt lonely, they enjoyed life, they felt sad, and they could not get going. We code every positive response as 1 (reversecoded for "felt happy" and "enjoyed life"), so the summary CES-D score takes on a range between 0 and 8. Following other studies we use a score of 4 or greater to indicate marked symptomology. 2

UCLA Loneliness score
The UCLA Loneliness score is based on the three items "How often do you feel you lack companionship?", "How often do you feel left out?", and "How often do you feel isolated from others?", where participants can respond "hardly ever or never", "some of the time", or "often". We sum the responses to obtain a loneliness score ranging from 3 to 9, where higher scores represent greater loneliness. Before this score is included in the regression analysis, it is first standardised to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1, such that the estimated coefficient would represent changes in the outcome variable when the score changes by 1 standard deviation.
Positive / negative support Positive support is captured by the items "How much do they really understand the way you feel about things?", "How much can you rely on them if you have a serious problem?", and "How much can you open up to them if you need to talk about your worries?", whereas negative support is captured by the items "How much do they criticise you?", "How much do they let you down when you are counting on them?", "How much do they get on your nerves?", and "How often do they make too many demands on you?". These seven support questions, where response options are "a lot", "some, "a little", and "not at all", are presented separately for partners, children, other immediate family, and friends. We reverse-code each item, take the average positive support ratings (across three items), and average this score across all four relationships. The same is done for negative support (across four items, and across all four relationships). Our final positive and negative support scores therefore range from 0 to 3, with higher scores representing higher levels of the respective type of support. Before these two scores are included in the regression analysis, the scores are first standardised to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1, such that their estimated coefficients would represent changes in the outcome variable when the scores change by 1 standard deviation.
At least weekly contact with nonhousehold members "Contact with non-household members" reflects meet up (including both arranged and chance meetings), speak on the phone, write or email, or send or receive text messages; with children, other immediate family, or friends who are not living with them.

Member of an organisation
Examples of organisations, clubs, or societies participants may be members of are political parties, tenant/resident groups, church, gyms, etc. , this is based on the question "Which best describes how you and your partner are getting along financially these days?", where possible responses are "manage very well", "manage quite well", "get by alright", "don't manage very well", "have some financial difficulties", and "have severe financial difficulties". Perceived financial difficulties is defined as selecting one of the latter three options. In the COVID-19 Substudy, two questions are used: (A) "In the 3 months before the coronavirus outbreak, how well were you managing financially?", to which possible responses are (1) "living comfortably", (2) "doing all right", (3)"just about getting by", (4) "finding it quite difficult", and (5) "finding it very difficult"; and (B) "How do you feel your current financial situation compares to before the coronavirus outbreak?", to which possible responses are (1) "I'm much worse off", (2) "I'm a little worse off", (3) "I'm about the same", (4) "I'm a little better off", and (5) "I'm much better off". Perceived financial difficulties indicates combinations (A4 or A5) and (B1, B2, or B3), (A2 or A3) and (B1 or B3), or (A1) and (B1). b We do not observe whether participants have a limiting, long-standing illness in the COVID-19 Substudy, so we use self-reported health, where participants are asked whether they would say their health is "excellent", "very good", "good", "fair", or "poor". We dichotomise this variable to indicate good health (that is, selecting the first three response options).
c For consistency with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale items administered in the COVID-19 Substudy, only seven items are considered across all three waves. Participants are asked whether, "much of the time during the past week", they felt depressed, felt that everything they did was an effort, their sleep was restless, they were happy, they felt lonely, they enjoyed life, and they could not get going (i.e., excluding "felt sad"). We code every positive response as 1 (reverse-coded for "felt happy" and "enjoyed life"), so the summary CES-D score takes on a range between 0 and 7. We use a score of 3 or greater to indicate marked depressive symptomology. 3 d The UCLA Loneliness score is based on the three items "How often do you feel you lack companionship?", "How often do you feel left out?", and "How often do you feel isolated from others?", where participants can respond "hardly ever or never", "some of the time", or "often". We sum the responses to obtain a loneliness score ranging from 3 to 9, where higher scores represent greater loneliness. Positive support is captured by the items "How much do they really understand the way you feel about things?", "How much can you rely on them if you have a serious problem?", and "How much can you open up to them if you need to talk about your worries?", whereas negative support is captured by the items "How much do they criticise you?", "How much do they let you down when you are counting on them?", "How much do they get on your nerves?", and "How often do they make too many demands on you?". These seven support questions, where response options are "a lot", "some, "a little", and "not at all", are presented only for partners in the COVID-19 Substudy, so for consistency we consider only positive and negative support for partners across all three waves. We reverse-code each item, take the average positive support ratings (across three items), and the same is done for negative support (across four items). Our final positive and negative support scores therefore range from 0 to 3, with higher scores representing higher levels of the respective type of support. Before these three scores are included in the regression analysis, the scores are first standardised to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1, such that their estimated coefficients would represent changes in the outcome variable when the scores change by 1 standard deviation.     Table S4 for notes a-e. Table S8. Within-individual changes in types of Internet use, by gender, cohort, education, and wealth levels ( Figure 5 estimates). Notes: All are binary variables unless indicated otherwise. *p<0.10, **p<0.05, ***p<0.01. Figures in parentheses are standard errors. Following the specification in Figure 4 (full regression output in Table S7), time-varying covariates are age, partnership and employment status, perceived financial difficulties, self-reported health, depressive symptomology, loneliness, levels of positive and negative support from partner, and contact with others. Notes: All are binary variables unless indicated otherwise. *p<0.10, **p<0.05, ***p<0.01. Figures in parentheses are standard errors.

(1) Daily Internet Use (2) Sending/ receiving emails (3) Voice or video calls (4) Managing finances (5) Shopping/buying goods or services
As the COVID-19 Substudy did not collect information on devices used to access the Internet or on places where they used the Internet, we take this information from Wave 9 (2018-19) and Wave 7 (2014-15), respectively. For the former analysis we categorise types of devices used into: (1) using smartphones and computers (defined as either, or any combination of, desktop, laptop, and tablet), 66% of sample; (2) only computers, 31%; or (3) only smartphones, 5%. In the latter we categorise places where they used the Internet into: (1) at home and elsewhere (work, education, another person's home, on the move, library, or internet café), 59% of sample; (2) only at home, 39%; or (3) only elsewhere, 2%.